Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded

by Jeff VanderMeer

  This epiphany pushed me into undertaking a bit of a personal quest. For there I was, noted clotheshorse and proud science-fiction nerd, learning for the first time about a movement that effectively combined the two. Never had such a thing happened to me before. How had a rabid fan-girl such as myself completely missed this revitalized subgenre? How had the fashionista side of my personality happened upon an aspect of sci-fi literature without my inner geek even realizing it? Never before had fashion brought me so firmly into contact with fandom. In the past, I am sad to say, the two almost never met. Twenty years or more bopping about the convention circuit and my obsession with high-heels and pretty dresses was more a dirty little secret than proud bedfellow. Science fiction was getting stylish? How could this be? I felt that something must be wrong with the universe. So, in classic archaeologist fashion, I began to hunt about in history for an explanation as to this mystery.

  It seems that, before the dawn of the modern steampunk literary movement, cyberpunk ruled the 1980s. This sparked a memory in my dark high-school soul: cyberpunk too was tied to a fashion movement in its heyday. Perhaps ten years after blue-haired protagonists plugged themselves into computers and battled mafia nanotech, some small pod of the alternative culture types started dressing cyberpunk. While most of America went on to explore the fine art of grunge in the 1990s, cyberpunks donned metallic eye makeup and fabrics that had more in common with red plastic bags than any known fiber. You have only to watch the movie Hackers to see the style come to life. Despite its candy-mod meets cyborg appeal, cyberpunk fashion always remained on the sidelines. It never hit mainstream popular dress and rarely walked the catwalks (with the possible exception of Betsey Johnson—who still looks like old-guard cyberpunk). Instead, cyberpunk went off to Japan, had a dirty little affair with the Wicked Witch of the West, and spawned Gothic Lolita. It may also have dropped a couple tabs and flirted with a hippy, if Burner style is to be believed. But essentially, the fashion of cyberpunk vanished.

  So how is this tied to steampunk? Well, for one thing, history would seem to indicate that the literature came first and the fashion second. Right around the time of cyberpunk in the early ‘80s (1980s not 1880s, mind you) aberrant author pens began to deviate from one subgenre to the next, scratching out steampunk instead of cyberpunk. K. W. Jeter, Tim Powers, and James Blaylock led the charge, but with the page, not the pocket-watch, for it would take fashion around two decades to catch up. Not so suddenly, some six to eight years ago, those of us who had been waiting patiently for the Goths to discover color found our wait was over. Brown fabrics began to make a tentative appearance and bronze jewelry instead of silver. Vests were seen displaying their paisley goodness in public, lace blouses came in cream instead of just black, here and there a gratuitous pocket attached itself in patch-like glory, and Cool Things on fobs dangled and jangled. Oh, perhaps not everyone had heard about steampunk fashion, but there it was, and we knew about it. And we started to wear it. We started to turn typewriter keys into earrings. We started to haunt secondhand stores looking for old leather jackets to cut apart and metal cogs and clock parts to sew in rows down the fronts. Finally, in 2008 Ralph Lauren put steampunk down the runway, and there was no question—the style was mainstream. People may still not know the term “steampunk,” but if you describe the clothing trend, they’ve seen someone wear it, or know someone who’s into it. It’s all around us, the buttoned up brass beauty of old tech and new ideas.

  So we now have both steampunk fiction and steampunk fashion, which left me wondering: Was the pen tied to the petticoat, or did they spring up independent of one another? Taking into account the temporal lag between the arrival of The Difference Engine and the khaki corset, and combining that with time spent milling about observing both communities, there seems to be very little connecting the fiction and the fashion. Add this to the unfortunate truth that authors tend to have only a nodding acquaintance with decorous attire, and one can only conclude that these disparate aspects of the steampunk movement were separated at birth. The two seemed wholly unaware of each other until relatively recently, when, like long-lost fraternal twins, they were finally reunited. Sure, the authors might have known, in a vague way, that there was some weird thing to do with goggles and top hats going on at the fringes of their universe. The steampunkers might have had some hazy idea that somewhere, somehow, someone was writing something to do with dirigibles and automatons. But that was the sum total of the mutual acknowledgement. I’m inclined to believe it was fate or serendipity or one of those cosmic coincidences that caused the two to coalesce. We all simply found each other in the end: and not just the writers and the fashionistas, but the makers and the musicians and the artists as well. And we formed into a strange little social movement without any real objective, organization, or political agenda.

  That said, while we may have arrived at this point together, many of us came by way of the mighty heel of a patent leather spat-cut boot with little buttons up the side. There are still plenty of people out there who are dressing steampunk without realizing it and making steampunk without reading it. Entirely unscientific inquiries suggest that at least 70 percent of steampunkers came to the lifestyle because of the fashion, not the fiction. (Okay, I totally made that up, but it sounds about right.) So, how to explain the basis of the appeal of steampunk style?

  It’s hard to detail all the threads of steamy fashion that draw us clotheshorses in. It’s Edwardian formal wear with industrial trim. It’s the lovechild of Hot Topic and a BBC costume drama. It’s the gentility and politeness of Victorian manners with free-range cross-dressing options. It’s salvaged suits with maker gadgets attached. It’s clock parts and candy stripes, and everything in between. It’s open to change, it’s adaptable, it welcomes invention, innovation, and art. It’s personalized and characterized—the ultimate in individuality. It can be worn only in part—a waistcoat here, a vintage military jacket there—or in full-on head-to-toe glory. However, there is more to it than just the look—there are underlying cultural components as well (or so I’m fated by my profession to believe).

  It seems to me that a good portion of the lure of the steampunk aesthetic has to do with rebelling against modern design. We are living in an age where technology is trapped inside little silver matchboxes. Functionality has become something shameful, a tiny thing to be hidden away behind plastic and metal. But with steampunk fashion the inner workings of a machine become not just approachable but glorified. We steampunk DIYers force cogs and gears back out into the open. We configure them to spout great gouts of steam (or pretend, using dry ice). We hot-glue-gun them onto top hats. We are sticking our collective tongue out at the teeny tiny tech of an increasingly micro-plasticized world.

  Steampunk also has a wonderful cross-gender and cross-generational appeal. Young makers are forming apprenticeships with older and more established artisans, joining tech shops, and hunting down artists and retired engineers for advice and help. Shopping for a stylish outfit tempts some into steamy goodness, while tinkering with gadgetry draws in others. (I won’t break that down along gender lines but I certainly have my opinions on the matter.) Steampunk is something couples can engage in together. It has so many different aspects that it can even interest the whole family. It is already bringing fractured groups into semi-harmonious discussion (Burners, sci-fi geeks, tech-heads, cosplayers, rebels, home decorators, DIYers, and, yes, even authors), and best of all, it teaches new artistic skills along the way. We are all forced to be creative and inventive in our effort to personalize and characterize our attire.

  There also seems to be psychological components to the appeal of the steam-punk aesthetic. It provides us with a nonpartisan means by which we can dress to withstand modern life. There is a pervading feeling of political upheaval and economic chaos right now, a sense that the world is crumbling about us. Steampunk is quietly coping with this impending doom by busily tying itself to the green movement, reusing old parts for new beauty. We are taking thin
gs society has thrown away and making them useful again. Also, the connection to the Victorian era ads an element of politeness and order to both the clothing and the people who wear it. In the best of all possible worlds, steampunkers are helpful and kind to one another, we mind our manners, we reinvent etiquette to go along with our reinvented spats. We try to tap into the noblest aspects of 1800s England without the classism or bigotry. This, combined with the aforementioned recycling of rejected technology, brings with it a sense of control in chaotic times. Whether acknowledged openly or not, I believe there is a part of the steampunker psyche that believes if we can dress and act the part with integrity and class, making use of society’s unwanted inanimate objects, we are exerting control over the crumbling ugliness of the world around us.

  Even though I am a steampunk author, I genuinely believe that the attire of steampunk is as vital to the movement as the literature. Fashion is one of the things that sets steampunk apart from other science-fiction and fantasy subgenres. The clothing is a visual representation of the melding of an aesthetic with a sense of creativity and community. It’s true that some people are more into the literature and others more into the craftsmanship, but these days almost everyone will nod in the fashion direction with a vest, or a pair of goggles, or a newsboy cap. Fashion has become the social construct that connects the eco-warriors with the threadbangers, the artists with the makers, the scholars with the dilettantes, and the authors with the fans. The power and the potential in steampunk attire is in its community-building effects, in the connections that it fosters and conversations it opens up between people. Steampunk style is not this season’s throw-away runway look, nor this year’s throw-away cell-phone technology. Steampunk is the opposite of planned obsolescence, which is one of the many reasons the look is still around.

  As with any burgeoning social movement, whether we like it or not, the style and the literature have become linked. Whether we are making it, or hearing it, or writing it, or wearing it, we are all steampunk. So I say, “Reach for those top hats and wear them with pride: for goggles, gaiters, glory, and beyond!”

  At the Intersection of Technology and Romance

  Jake von Slatt

  STEAMPUNK MEANS MANY things to many people. That which began as a literary movement has slowly changed into what is colloquially referred to as a “subculture.” Throughout that process of change, one element of steampunk that has continually grown in recognition is the idea that the “punk” in steampunk is a direct descendant of the Punk Rock do-it-yourself credo. This rings absolutely true for me, as I grew up during the Punk era and have always been a fanatic do-it-yourselfer or Maker.

  When I first started identifying my work, and occasionally myself, as “steampunk,” it was not so much that I had discovered a movement to be a part of as that I had discovered the name for the movement to which I had always belonged. This idea that “I’ve finally found a name for what I am” is something that I have heard countless times from people I’ve met because of my involvement in the steampunk community, and I think that it’s an indication there is a broader phenomenon at work here and that steampunk is just one face of it.

  There is currently a resurgence of interest in making things oneself and this is very much a multi-disciplined phenomenon. Whether it be tailoring, textiles, beer, soap, electronics, or bio-hacking, people are starting to get interested again in pursuing hobbies with a technological basis. I have a theory as to why this is happening and particularly why it’s happening now. Steampunk is part of this Maker Movement and I am going to walk you through the process of the decline and resurgence of technology-based hobbies using the example of electronics, since it is the one with which I am most familiar.

  For many years technology-based hobbies, such as electronics and amateur radio, have been in decline. The magazines that supported the electronic hobbyist are all either out of business or are now purely gadget review rags— and there used to be dozens of them! Many towns had an electronics store packed with kits and components, and national companies like Heathkit and Eico sold build-it-yourself versions of radios, electric “eyes,” amplifiers, and even color television sets. All of this is long gone.

  The current resurgence of interest in electronics and other technological hobbies isn’t being driven by folks like me who have been involved with these activities for decades. It’s being powered by young people, and they are bringing to it their own sensibilities and aesthetics. In the past these were established hobbies. If you had an interest in electronics, you’d usually start with a crystal radio, and then maybe step up to a 100-in-1 Electronic Projects kit. You’d go to Radio Shack or the local hobby center and there would be a whole wall of kits and components and books of things to do. The same was true for other hobbies as well; they each had a progression of standard projects that everyone would do.

  However, I think the current resurgence of interest in technological hobbies lacks such defined paths and this means that young people are developing these hobbies later and infusing them with what they are already passionate about. This is what’s leading to the development of fascinating hybrids like steampunk.

  I’ve often described steampunk as the intersection of romance and science, and I think romance has a lot to do with steampunk’s genesis as a subculture because I believe it’s all due to what is essentially a love affair gone wrong.

  The Victorian era was the last time that the typical high-school-equivalent education, for those lucky enough to attend school, gave the graduate all of the tools that he or she needed to understand the technology of the time. But more precisely, it was an age where the average educated person was expected to have an understanding of how the machines that made modern life possible worked. It helped a great deal that the machines of the time were designed to be appealing and to glorify the technology that made them work. Their inner workings were often exposed and their outer chassis embellished with pin-striping and gold leaf.

  A young woman watching a train pull away from the platform could identify all of the parts that made the engine run. The boiler, the firebox, the great steam piston rod that drove the wheels and the smaller rod that worked the valve gear; these components were all visible and their functions obvious.

  Technology was handsome, straightforward, and an honest, hard worker. All and all, a very attractive package.

  Then along came the excitement of the first date with electricity! Electricity was clean and fast and could do things that used to require incredibly complex mechanisms. But while at first strange and mysterious, once one sat and played with a battery and some wire, electricity was easily understood. If you wrapped the wire around a nail and connected it to a battery, you could pick up another nail with your “electromagnet.” When you disconnected the battery, the second nail would drop, and the proverbial light bulb illuminate. “Ah! That’s how a telegraph works!” As for light bulbs themselves, the secret behind them was made immediately clear if you short circuited a battery of sufficient power and observed a length of wire grow hot and glow.

  Electricity was clearly efficient and helpful, but just a little mysterious. Very sexy indeed!

  But it was actually the advent of electronics that initiated the change that drove a wedge between us and technology. With mechanics, action and reaction are clear. In electrics, the action is once removed, but still directly observable. In electronics, instruments are required to convert the electrical impulses within the machines into something that we can sense with our eyes and ears. In the case of the radio, this instrument is the speaker. In the case of television, it’s the cathode ray tube. In addition, to troubleshoot and repair any of these things you need meters and specialized testers to detect what’s wrong—you can’t simply look at it and see the malfunction like you can with something mechanical, such as a steam engine.

  Of course, there were still folks who learned to master these tools and build their own radios and televisions, not as part of a profession, but as a hobby, for fun. Th
ese were often young people excited about the technology and it would often lead them into technical careers. Most importantly, these concepts were still being introduced to children in schools. Basic electronics was often taught at the middle-school level in the U.S. right up until the late twentieth century.

  There were also popular magazines that contained projects for the amateur radio and electronics hobbyist and many folks eagerly awaited the next issue. (Although these same young people were often teased and called names like “Poindexter” after the nerdy character in a popular comic of the time.)

  Electronics, and particularly those that relied on vacuum tubes, contained dangerous high-voltage power supplies and thus needed to be enclosed in cabinets. You could no longer view the components that made up your TV, let alone see them working. The television was the first real “black box” appliance in many homes. While commercial radios were equally mysterious, the majority of young people at the time had built or had friends who built crystal sets and understood some of the basics of radio transmission and reception.

  Technology was harder and harder to understand for the casual user. It was keeping secrets and refusing to explain itself. Some folks thought it was worth the effort and found that mystery very attractive, but many decided that it wasn’t worth the effort.

  World War II came along and the rate of technological advancement increased incredibly because it was necessary for our security. We didn’t worry that technology had gotten kind of dark—that it was now focused on destruction—we needed it for our very survival.